Poizner's illegal alien agenda faces limits

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, April 10, 2010

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(photo) Steve Poizner appears in San Francisco in February to speak with The Chronicle's editorial board.

Steve Poizner has a strong position against benefits for illegal immigrants in his campaign for governor. He's also got a fallback position whenever anyone asks how much of his agenda he could actually carry out if elected - most of his proposals, he says, are barred by laws that he'd like to change.

The state insurance commissioner, trailing Meg Whitman in the Republican primary campaign, is trying to appeal to his party's conservatives by stressing his opposition to illegal immigration. He's particularly reminding audiences of his whole-hearted support for Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative denying all state services, including public schooling, to illegal immigrants.

The only way to stop illegal immigration, Poizner declared during a March 15 debate, "is to turn the magnets off by ending, once and for all, the taxpayer-funded benefits for people who are here illegally. Meg doesn't want to go that far. I support Prop. 187; she opposes it."

"I'm going to be the truth-teller in this campaign. As governor, I'm going to stop illegal immigration once and for all," Poizner told a cheering convention crowd March 13.

The state can no longer afford educational and health care benefits for illegal immigrants, he told The Chronicle a few days later. At various times he's estimated California's subsidies for the undocumented at $4 billion to $6 billion, and at $10 billion.

Governor's limits
What Poizner didn't say on those occasions was that a governor can't do much about immigration, and can't do anything to remove immigrant children, legal or not, from public schools.

Prop. 187's restrictions never took effect because a federal judge ruled that the initiative interfered with exclusive federal regulation of immigration. And in 1982 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Texas case that states must educate all children, regardless of immigration status.

More modest moves
When asked what actions he could take within the law, Poizner speaks more modestly, as he did at a March 12 news conference.

"There's certain federal laws that we have to follow, and of course the governor can't change those," he said. "There's federal laws that require providing a seat for every student. ... There's also federal laws about providing emergency care to people, no matter what."

The state, Poizner said, could eliminate some optional benefits, like California's in-state tuition for illegal immigrants attending public colleges, and some health benefits that other states have dropped.

That would save the state $109 million a year it now spends on nonemergency Medi-Cal services for undocumented immigrants, mostly for prenatal care, and perhaps another $20 million to $30 million on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants who attend California high schools and move on to a public college.

Poizner has also promised, on his campaign Web site, to deploy California's National Guard along with other states' "to secure the southern border," and to withhold state funds from cities like San Francisco whose "sanctuary" policies forbid reporting suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities.

Campaign promise
Those changes are not clearly illegal or beyond a state's authority. Yet on a television ad his campaign launched March 23, Poizner promises simply to "stop taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants," without distinguishing between benefits he could lawfully end and those he couldn't.

So is the candidate misleading campaign audiences by making promises he knows he can't keep?

Not at all, said campaign spokeswoman Bettina Inclan. "Steve has been consistent with his message," she said, describing his plan as "a constitutionally viable version of Prop. 187."

Working with Congress
Lanhee Chen, the campaign's policy director, said Poizner as governor would work with Congress to clarify federal immigration law and see whether there's a way to revive some of Prop. 187, including its ban on public schooling.

Poizner's attempt to use the immigration issue to boost his campaign angered Los Angeles attorney Peter Schey, who represented immigrants in the successful challenges to both Prop. 187 and the Texas public school ban.

"Most of his anti-immigrant promises are vacuous, empty promises that he knows he couldn't fulfill," Schey said. "But he knows they press buttons of racism and fear and xenophobia during the economic downturn."

Whitman, meanwhile, has staked out her own position, saying she is tough on illegal immigration but opposes withholding services from children. She also cites Poizner's praise in 2008 for the immigration stance of President George W. Bush, who had proposed allowing many illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

A Poizner ad quotes comments from Whitman in October that endorsed "a path to legalization" for illegal immigrants who paid a fine and took other steps to qualify for residency.

That's actually also the view of two-thirds of Californians, according to a Los Angeles Times-USC poll released this week (this was a tiny worthless poll) that indicated a shift in public attitudes since the passage of Prop. 187 in 1994. Another recent survey, by the Public Policy Institute of California, also raised questions about immigration as a game-changer in this year's campaign.

That poll asked likely voters to name their most important issue. Only 3 percent chose illegal immigration.

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

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